Discarded plastic bags clogging up drains, entangled in fences and entangled in brush.

Plastic bottles in gutters, yards, fields and beaches.

Plastic in various forms strangling fish and wildlife, or found in the bellies of fish and wildlife.

Yuck.

When used properly, plastic is a wonderful thing: it's made many things in our life much more convenient and sanitary. Unfortunately, people think of plastic as disposable rather than reusable or recyclable, and discarded plastic is not only ugly on the landscape, it's also harmful, as we see in the massive garbage flows in the ocean, dead animals that have choked to death or suffocated because of plastic, plastic found inside our own bodies, and reports of toxic substances released into Earth and water from discarded plastic. Plastic is causing huge environmental problems.

In developing countries, discarded plastic bags and bottles are a particular problem: on a trip to Romania in 2008, the amount of trash along the roads, in fields and even on the beach was staggering to me. As a tourist, it made me want to move through certain regions quickly -- no desire to stay and spend my money on food, accommodations or museum entry fees in an environment that looked so bad. Imagine if I had been a potential investor in the country, looking to start a hotel; one look at some of the landscape and I would have decided against investing my money there. But it's not a problem limited to developing countries; ever been to Naples, Italy?

More resources on why discarded plastic is bad for the environment and people

Plastic Grocery Bags Sacking the Environment

Plastic Not-So-Fantastic: How the Versatile Material Harms the Environment and Human Health

The Effects of Bottled Water on the Environment

Addressing the problem of discarded plastic in a developing country can:

• give local people income-generation activities
  
• make the environment cleaner and safer for both people, livestock, wildlife and plants
  
• give local people a greater sense of ownership, caring and pride in their environment, and that can translate into being more active to address other environmental issues
  
• make a location more appealing to travelers, potential investors and others who have money to spend in an area
  
• reduce waste management costs for a local government
  

The first goal is to clearly illustrate that the problem of discarded plastic is pervasive in a particular region. Nothing does this better than photos and field visits.

Take lots and lots of photos that illustrate the problem of discarded plastic. Encourage local people to submit their own photos (easily done with cell phones). All photos should have a location name and date. Post these photos on a web site of your own and an account on Flickr (create a group on Flickr specifically for these photos from your region or country).

See if the government or any NGOs working in the area have reports on the problems of waste management in your area; you do this by contacting agencies directly, searching on the Internet, and contacting a local university library to see if they can help you find such research. Quote from these reports on your web site to support your message that discarded plastic is a problem in a particular village, region or country.

Illustrate the life-cycle of plastic, specifically on how long it takes to degrade in the environment, and why this is a problem.

If you can convince people that discarded plastic is a problem, you will have an easier time of getting them to recycle and reuse plastic, or to seek more environmentally-friendly alternatives to plastic.

Getting People to Change Their Ways

Your goal is to get people to change their ways regarding how they use and discard plastic, particularly plastic bags and plastic bottles. Your goal is to get more people to recycle and reuse plastic, and to seek more environmentally-friendly alternatives to plastic.

You get your environmental message out via:

• street/campus presentations, presentations at clubs and associations and communities of faith (temples, mosques, churches),
• presentations in cafeterias during lunch time, etc.
• interviews and public service announcements on local radio
• your organization's web site
• your organization's FaceBook status, and your status on other online social networking
• online videos on YouTube
• video PSAs for local television
• partnerships with environmental NGOs working in your area

Changing people's ways is easier said than done!

Some things you want to encourage people to do regarding recycling and reusing plastic, and regarding seeking more environmentally-friendly alternatives to plastic:

• Encourage people to reuse their plastic bags when going to the grocery instead of taking new ones, or to take their own cloth or canvas bags to the grocery as an alternative to plastic.

• Encourage people when they go to the grocery to ask the person bagging their groceries to put more than one item in a plastic bag (rather than giving every item its own plastic bag).

• Encourage groceries and other stores to accept returned plastic bags, and to clean them and reuse them. Encourage groceries to give a discount for every bag a person brings himself or herself to use for her groceries that day (in the USA, some stores play five cents a bag back to customers for every cloth bag they use for their groceries). Encourage the public to shop at these environmentally-conscious groceries who participate in these activities.

• Show people how to use lots and lots of plastic bags to weave them or fuse them into one very strong bag that lasts for many years, or any one of a number of other items (rugs, place mats, mug rests, ponchos, toys, laptop case, etc. -- anything that can be knitted or sewn). There are a number of web sites that have free patterns for these crafts and many others. Perhaps a women's cooperative would want to make these items from plastic bags and sell them?
  How to Prepare Plastic Bags for Knitting or Crochet

  How to Knit a Bag from Plastic Bags

  Recycle plastic shopping bags by knitting them into a carryall.

  Recycled Plastic Shopping Bag Tote

  How to Fuse Plastic Bags Into a Laptop Case

  Links to various plastic bag knitting projects

• Teach children to make kites from plastic bags, and have a public contest for kite design and kite flying with kites made from plastic bags, where you also make presentations about the problem of plastic in the environment and encourage people to reuse, recycle and seek alternatives to plastic.

• Talk about alternatives to bottled water in pursuit of clean drinking water. For instance, encourage offices to provide large-bottled water dispensers, but no individual bottles of water; staff would use glasses and cups to draw bottled water from this central source.

• Talk about how people can recycle bottles that are used for bottled water, Coke, etc., both in terms of where they can take them for money or what they can do with them in terms of making them into something else.
  • A roof made of discarded plastic bottles.
  • How to Construct Houses with Plastic Bottles

  • Plastic bottle house (in Serbia with pictures)

  • Peace Corps volunteers in Guatemala collected thousands of discarded plastic bottles to construct schools and community centers across the Central American country. Volunteers use the project to as a way to teach their local communities environmental awareness and sustainable construction methods. One volunteer is using bottles to construct her village's first high school, a computer lab and restroom facility. Here are photos of this project, and here are details about the project, including tips on how to do such a project yourself.

  • Students in England made a green house of discarded plastic bottles.

  Or how to use plastic bottles as in-door planters, to create a window garden? This s great for urban dwellers with a window that gets sun.

  • 2-liter bottle upside down tomato planter
    
  • 1 Gallon Milk carton upside down tomato planter
    
  • Sub-Irrigated Planters (SIPs) from plastic and glass bottles
    
  • Recycled Plastic Bottle Gardening
  • ideas for container gardening
  • Hanging window farms to grow edible plants and herbs in a small space.

• Organize a group clean-up date, where local people volunteer their time to clean up one particular field, a park, or other area of all plastic, and then recycle the plastic in any of the ways noted above.

Show Results

Showcase how people take your ideas and incorporate them into their lives. Take photos of their work and put it on your own Flickr site or web site. Encourage the press to cover the results of your efforts. Send a press release to local government officials talking about the results of your efforts. Show photos of these results at your public presentations.

 
Also see

How to Go Car-less/Car-free in the USA (or, at least, use a car less)

Creating or Holding a Successful Community Event or Fund Raising Event.

Fund Raising For a Cause or Organization

How to Make a Difference Internationally/Globally/in Another Country Without Going Abroad

Advice for Hotels, Hostels & Campgrounds in Transitional & Developing Countries: The Qualities of Great, Cheap Accommodations.

How you can advocate for an issue important to you

Details on volunteering abroad (volunteering internationally).

Ideas for Funding Your Volunteering Abroad Trip.

Volunteering To Help After Major Disasters.

How to Find Volunteering Opportunities, a resource for adults who want to volunteer

Family Volunteer - Volunteering by Families with Children.

Ideas for Leadership Volunteering Activities and Girl Scouts Gold Awards
These ideas are good for anyone (not just a Girl Scout) seeking ways to create or lead a sustainable, lasting benefit to a community, to have a leadership role as a volunteer. These are also good mitzvah projects.

Donating Things Instead of Cash or Time (In-Kind Contributions)

How to Get a Job with the United Nations or Other International Humanitarian or Development Organization

Detailed information on Finding Community Service and Volunteering for Teens.

Detailed advice for volunteer groups / group volunteering.

Volunteering with Seniors.

Careers Working With Animals (for the benefit of animals)